Review of Dark Shadows (2012) by Baylor T — 06 Apr 2013

Dark Shadows suffers from the same problem the first Scooby Doo movie does, it has no clue what it wants to be. It has no idea if it wants to be a straight up parody of the original show or an actual adaptation.

Now, I have never seen the show, so i'm just judging it as a movie. I could see the premise of a vampire waking up into (what is to him) the future work as both a goofy comedy and a supernatural thriller.

But apparently the writers of this movie couldn't pick one and decided to throw two different scripts into a blender. The result is a mixed bag of undeveloped ideas. Take the actors for example, Johnny Depp is lost in a strange and cartoonish world while almost everybody else is taking it seriously.

Its not his fault, its just, again, the script is unbalanced. The show obviously didn't adapt well into the big screen, with characters showing up and disappearing again throughout, and it also has one of the most forced and rushed plot points I have ever seen.

I'm sure the show was paced much better, since it was one 5 times a week, but this is a 2 hour movie, you can't cram in the majority of the show in that time! Do your own thing! The movie does have strengths though, Tim Burton's set pieces are as great as always, the make ups good, the soundtrack is fantastic, and Depp's performance, although out of place, is really good! If they just decided to either actually adapt the show, or to take the 21 Jump Street approach and just make a comedy, it would have saved this movie from mediocrity.